Re: [OFFTOPIC] Gnumenclature was Re: IBM, was never Re: Linux Kernel

Jamie Lokier (lkd@tantalophile.demon.co.uk)
Thu, 7 Jan 1999 10:07:23 +0000


On Thu, Jan 07, 1999 at 12:04:09AM -0800, George Bonser wrote:
> I dunno ... Cygnus fixed up GCC enough so that it actually worked and made
> their commercial release of it back in '91.

After how many years of FSF development?

> To say that Linux would not
> exist without FSF or GNU is balderdash.

But I didn't say that. I said it would feel very different, and be
further behind technologically.

Note, for example, how various commercial Unix users often install lots
of GNU utilities in preference to the ones supplied by the vendor.

> The BSD utils probably would have been used instead.

You'll notice BSD uses GCC and lots of miscellaneous GNU utilities too.
Thus proving the bit about technological superiority :-)

I don't think BSD came with a free C compiler before GCC. I could be wrong.

> In fact, I wonder if Linus would have even started Linux if 386BSD would
> have been available to him at the time.

Probably. He had Minix+386 patches, and that wasn't good enough for
various reasons, political and technical. I think 386BSD had similar
problems at the time.

-- Jamie

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